


A little fall of rain

by orphan_account



Series: The first and second Witness [1]
Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Abbie Mills calls Ichabod 'Ichabod'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little fall of rain

**Author's Note:**

> Next up will be the first time Ichabod calls Abbie, 'Abbie'.
> 
> Companion piece found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1032488

Sixth months after his awakening, Ichabod is taken to bed with a fever. 

He feels it coming, fevers being familiar to him in a way that most things in the twenty-first century aren't, he feels the way that his mind starts to slow and his heart tries to beat like the war drums out of his chest. He, of course, says nothing, not to Lieutenant Mills or to any of her cohorts at their institution. But by the second day, he cannot get out of bed. 

He cannot even reach across to the bedside table to take the mobile telephone in his hand and press the button that Miss Mills told him would call her directly. 

So he doesn't. He sits in bed and shivers under three thick covers, and he prays. 

In his dreaming he hears the familiar assult on his ears that is the mobile machine, but Ichabod cannot swim to conciousness. So he waits, and tries for better rest. 

It is only when he feels a warm hand on his forehead that he does manage, squinting his eyes against the daylight to find Miss Mills standing above him. He cannot tell if she is wearing her military uniform or not, but her dark hair is down around her face. "Ichabod?" he hears, something soft in her usually sharp, commanding voice that he finds oddly comforting. 

"You must forgive my appearance," Ichabod hears himself say. He pushes into the warmth of her palm, the small familiarity soothing his itching skin. "I'm afraid I am overcome by fever."

He does not hear a response but hears the familiar exasperation of his partner and the shuffling of movement around his room in the old house he lives in. 

After a time, he feels the relief of a warm cloth pressed against his forehead, wiping the sweat from his skin and the covers being pulled up tight around him. He feels the weight of a body on one side of his bed. 

"I'm going to give you something," he hears Abbie say. There is something akin to pity in her voice. "It'll taste awful, but it'll help bring down your fever." 

His tongue feels like only the driest plaster, but he manages to sit up. He does, thankfully, and Ichabod is able to see Miss Mills for the first time since she arrived; her overcoat is hanging over the chesterfield in the corner. Her boots had apparently been taken off by his front door, leaving only thick, wooly socks and her jeans. "If I must," Ichabod says, because he does not feel well enough to say anything else. 

And she was completely right, he has taken some foul concoctions in his day, but nothing compares him for the sweet, honey-like substance that enters his mouth that takes like something akin to the Starbucks Frappuccino he had once tried so very long ago, only tasting like cherry and liquid apple. 

He must have made a face, because Miss Mills had to hide a laugh from him. 

But she helps him sink back into the mattress beneath them, and he sighs. The medicine has coated his throat in whatever sticky substance it was, but already it is helping the dryness of his throat. "I feel very much like death, Lieutenant," he says. 

"Well, you have a couple more appendages than I have come to expect," says Abbie, smiling. 

Ichabod smiles, too, because he had not even realized that he said it. But then he feels light-headed, so he sinks more into the mattress. 

Ichabod tries to consentrate on the feeling of warm skin against his, the steadiness that comes from military training. He keeps himself from showing how much he enjoys the simple touch, or showing how much relief it actually brings him. 

"You could have called," Abbie tells him. "I waited until noon for your dumbass to show up at the station." 

He might have mumbled something about confusing buttons on the mobile telephone, or he could have slunk right back into sleep.

His head is too heavy, his limbs feel like they have stones tied to them, and his tongue does not obey him. But that hand is still at his forehead, smoothing back his hair after a moment of hesitation. The motion is repeated, and Ichabod feels his stiffness fading.

"Ichabod?" Abbie says, and he hears it somewhere in the back of his mind. 

He manages a simple, "Mhmm?" before drifting off further. 

He does not, however, forget the sound of his name coming from Miss Mill's lips, even if he was mindless in a fever. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next up will be the first time Ichabod calls Abbie, 'Abbie'.
> 
> Companion piece found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1032488


End file.
